Abstract
Physical exercise (PE) brings physiological benefits to human health; paradoxically, exposure to air pollution (AP) is harmful. Hence, the combined effects of AP and PE are interesting issues worth exploring. The objective of this study is to review literature involved in AP-PE fields to perform a knowledge-map analysis and explore the collaborations, current hotspots, physiological applications, and future perspectives. Herein, cluster, co-citation, and co-occurrence analysis were applied using CiteSpace and VOSviewer software. The results demonstrated that AP-PE domains have been springing up and in rapid growth since the 21st century. Subsequently, active countries and institutions were identified, and the productive institutions were mainly located in USA, China, UK, Spain, and Canada. Developed countries seemed to be the major promoters. Additionally, subject analysis found that environmental science, public health, and sports medicine were the core subjects, and multidimensional communications were forming. Thereafter, a holistic presentation of reference co-citation clusters was conducted to discover the research topics and trace the development focuses. Youth, elite athletes, and rural population were regarded as the noteworthy subjects. Commuter exposure and moderate aerobic exercise represented the common research context and exercise strategy, respectively. Simultaneously, the research hotspots and application fields were elaborated by keyword co-occurrence distribution. It was noted that physiological adaptations including respiratory, cardiovascular, metabolic, and mental health were the major themes; oxidative stress and inflammatory response were the mostly referred mechanisms. Finally, several challenges were proposed, which are beneficial to promote the development of the research field. Molecular mechanisms and specific pathways are still unknown and the equilibrium points and dose-effect relationships remain to be further explored. We are highly confident that this study provides a unique perspective to systematically and comprehensively review the pieces of AP-PE research and its related physiological mechanisms for future investigations.
Highlights
Air pollution (AP) occurs in sync with the progress of industrialization and urbanization
relevant hotspots of the AP-PE field have been described by the knowledge-map strategy
Despite previous articles that have been conducted on the cohort design
Summary
Air pollution (AP) occurs in sync with the progress of industrialization and urbanization. As an emerging strategy to mitigate the detriment of AP to the body, exercise and physical activities play irreplaceable roles in promoting health, preventing chronic diseases, reducing disease complications, and delaying disease progressions (Haskell et al, 2007; Colberg et al, 2010; O’Donovan et al, 2010; Booth et al, 2012; Lavie et al, 2019). In this condition, a rarely known but increasingly crucial issue is the relationship between AP and its impact on exercise and physical activities. These facts, in this sense, lead to a dilemma whether the positive effects of exercise could be suppressed by the ambient AP
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